Percieved Lunacy
by neefflove
Summary: What kind of a world is it when creativitly, joy, passion, even love is considered insanity? Fear, greed, dishonesty are obsolete, but so is happiness. If that is what is considered insane than I am a nut case! I am off my rocker, lost my marbels insane and i have the emotion to be proud of that. And you do too, until they take it from you.
1. Chapter 1

It's funny how sometimes the cures are worse then the diseases. Sometimes the cures actual bring out the very thing they are trying to whisk away. Like the cure for insanity for example. The doctors monitor and record, they employ reason, psychiatry, mind games, but all they end up doing is pushing pills and needles into a guinea pig just hoping that something will work to alter their brain function and produce whatever outcome they perceive to be sane. Doctor's are the epitome of defiance of nature. They believe they are curing evil, but are really only creating mayhem. When Florence Abernathy decided that all diseases stem from one horrible Delirium it caused a ripple effect. Passion became poison, creation became carnage, and love became lunacy.

Developing the cure for the newly declared terminal disease of love meant the abolishment of freedom. This highly contagious disease was easily spread by touch, the exchange of passionate words and has even been recorded to have been spread at first sight. Abernathy declared that love is the bacterium from which all illnesses manifest. It is the cause of insomnia, trouble catching a breath, depression and even the cause of more serious diseases. Love can break your heart causing heart attacks and other deadly diseases therefore love has been declared nothing more then a deadly nascence that is to be feared and taken every precaution against. Amor Deliria Nervosa is the new black plague and Abernathy is the priest meant to Baptist the world of it.

At the beginning of the governments crusade to rid the country of the Delirium they began building walls and fences, outposts and cure facilities, and they threw every resister into the crypts to waste away except for those who escaped to the wilds, the areas outside the fences where the disease was free to run rampant. The disease was finally eradicated when the president ordered the Blitz in 2054. They sent in every aircraft that was available to them and bombed out the wilds, destroying whole cities of Americans that refused to move into the new Delirium free quarantined areas. They had defeated the disease that threatened their perfect society, or so they thought.

Like cockroaches, love survives even if humanity doesn't. It breeds in the cracks and crevices of the bombed out society waiting to make it's come back. The invalids are a myth they tell themselves, but deep down they know that we are coming for them. They fear us as they tremble behind their fences pretending that their disease is the stuff of history. History repeats it's self if you're not careful. Like the rise of the zombies the invalids will get their time. Some might say we are crazy to go up against the cureds and their guns and plains while we just barley survive with sticks and rocks, but those are also the people that tell you you're crazy if you feel something. To them love will be infectious. It will infiltrate their societies, take control of their people, and take its rightful place as the wonder of humanity once again.

Sometimes it actually matters how you are perceived by other people. If others think you are crazy and treat you that way you will start to believe it yourself. You might even begin to go crazy. If they have the power to detain you, shove pills down your throat, poke around in your brain, and take everything from you that you hold to value then there is not much left to do, but go insane. You're not yourself. You're not even what they expect you to be. You're just an empty shell. You are a nut case because you're human. Somehow the world has become so twisted that the heartless are considered in their right mind.

The difference from this side of the fence and the other is night and day, black and white, zombies and invalids. Here it is tasteless and bitter, colorless and empty air. The lack of emotion on this side is so apparent that the life of the party is here at Abernathy House, home to the mentally ill and other wise terminally diseased. The only reason those of us that are here at Abernathy House and not killed or thrown in the crypts to rot away is simply for the sake of science they tell us. We are lab rates to be studied and nothing more than that.

I had freedom once. Room to roam freely. I didn't mind the lack of food or shelter, I was raised that way. The wilds have been my home forever until I was pushed into the resistance. I didn't want to leave the wilds, but they made me feel as though it was my duty so I went. When I left they didn't tell me where I would be ending up. I was expecting either success in my placement in San Francisco or death, but what I got was much worse. I was left here, with the zombies who suffered the risks of the procedure, the defectives. Some were in their right minds, but most suffered brain damage from early procedures or they just couldn't take the surgery. All of use here have the same three pronged scar etched behind our ears, but the difference is mine is faked. When an invalid enters the resistance they get the mark, the mark of a heartless so we can blend in and infiltrate their society. We must abandon emotion and let cruelty and logic take its place creating a void. You do not have your freedom to fill that void so it becomes a shell. You have a new name, a new life and you are left to watch the emotionlessness of the zombies unfold. My shell is called Delaney Harper and she is an inmate at Abernathy house just waiting for her chance to run free.

~~~~ Just an FYI if you haven't read the book. When I say zombies it's not referring to the undead. A zombie is just a term they use referring to the people who have had the cure for love. I hope you like it so far. Thanks for reading and please leave any comments! ~~~~


	2. Repetition

Repetitive noises are known to upset the mind. The constant drip of a leaky faucet, the creek of an old fan spinning lazily, the distant hums of the ramblings of a fellow inmate, it's enough to make someone loose their mind. I guess that's not much of a problem if it's already gone. The thin lumpy mattress doesn't protect my tail bone from the hard metal of the springs underneath, but I am used to it. Actually it is kind of comforting to feel something hard again. Everything on the other side of the fence is so easy if you follow the rules, which kind of only makes me want break them that much more. There is nothing to do, but sit. Sitting in the quart yard. Sitting in the day room. Sitting in the evaluation centers. Sitting in the dark.

I sit with my legs drawn up onto my dingy mattress and trace my marks. I trace the scraps on my hands and knees that I have been used to my whole life. The Wilds aren't a very forgiving place. I trace the dots on my shoulders and arms that detail the injections and transfusions that I have been subject too. And finally I trace the three raised bumps that lay just behind my ear that brand me as a cured, a defective one at that. Usually if a procedure has proven to be ineffective it is administered again, and again, and again until either it takes or in most cases the subject dies. I suppose I should feel lucky that when my fake procedure had been ruled ineffective I was sent to Abernathy House rather than actually being administered the cure, but I can't bring my self to feel lucky for being here. I am a lab rat, kept only for research. Research they will use to prefect their unnatural crusading.

When I was in the Wilds I felt as if I was the essence of natural. There was nothing more wholesome than the rawness of my sense of belonging. Here I am a zombie. Not by procedure, but by the shear breaking of my will. I was cured simply by the taking of what I hold most dear. My empty shell sits and lets the cureds examine her. She plays the part they expect her to play. She falls under the radar and gains the advantage of underestimation. She waits as the rattling of her cell door post cedes the opening of it. She has learned their routine and studied it and she examines them as they her. She has mastered their acting abilities. They act as though there is more to them than logic and she acts the opposite. She has become the epitome of what they are trying to achieve only to snatch it out from under them when she gets her chance. When my superiors in the revolution decided on a name for my cured ID's they displayed the humor that we as uncureds have kept. Delaney has a Gaelic meaning, it means child of dark defiance and that's exactly what I intend to do. Defy. The heavy metal door on my prison slowly creeps open revealing one of the most sickening orderlies, Arnold. He has mastered his companionate mask so well that it makes me sick to my stomach knowing that it is fake.

"Delaney, it's time for your meeting with Sarah." He says with a voice that reminds me of the inviting colors of a poisonous frog. He wheels his tray in and begins rifling through the drawers searching for the syringe with my name on it.

"It really is an incredible bore to talk about my thoughts for hours." My voice chimes in a monotone as I hold out my arm ready to embrace the impending injection. He gives a chuckle that is the essence of fake and meant to be taken that way.

"It will help you with your recovery." Arnold says replaying the lie that I have heard many times before. The only recovery they are interested in is the recovery of control. He pushes the needle further and further into my arm searching my face for any signs of something other than solitude.

"Well if it must be done." I say with a small forced smile. Arnold pulls the cold syringe from my vein and quickly dabs a cotton swab at it ready to absorb the coming blood. I don't know what they have been pushing into me over the past few months, but I'm doing whatever I can to make them think its working.

"And it must." Arnold says continuing the small talk. The lack of emotion behind his eyes makes me nauseous as they examine me. It's unnatural, inhuman, but I don't let this show on my face. I simply keep the steely expression that I have learned to mimic from them so well.

Arnold tosses out the cotton swab before returning to his tray and pulling out my pills. He presses them into my palm and watches as I pop them into my mouth one by one. He is only satisfied when I open my mouth and lift my tough so he can be certain they have gone down.

"I have your change of cloths," he says pulling my gray sweats and t-shirt from the bottom of his cart. They're clean and ready for another day's use, "I'll give you a minute to change." He pulls the heavy metal door closed behind him. I wait five seconds like always before throwing myself to the floor. I shove three fingers down my throat as far as they will go holding them there through violent gags until finally the three small lumps raise up and out. I don't waste any time once the small blue pills are back in my hand wading in a puddle of salvia. I work my way shoving myself under the hard metal frame of the bed until I can reach the wall. This small rock of concrete had been worked out of its place in the wall long before I got here, but I have made great use of it. I push it aside and place the three pills in the small alcove behind it before quickly shoving it back in place. Promptly I jump to my feet and struggle to remove my t-shirt and replace it with the identical clean one. I do the same with the sweat pants before slipping on the dingy white slippers by the door in preparation for Arnold's return. It doesn't take long before he is back to escort me to my session with Sarah. He shoos me out the door and into the oddly light hall. It is obvious by the looks of the facilities that Abernathy house was once used as a residential area, an apartment complex or something. Sometimes in the Wilds we would stumble onto places like this. They were obviously damaged from the bombing, but they made easy shelter for a night. We couldn't stay long, something like that attracts too much negative attention.

I walk flanking Arnold down the familiar corridors past the mumblers and the droolers who spend their day sitting in the halls waiting for medications and examinations. We make our way through the day room where the more "successful" cases spend their time and finally we arrive at Dr. Sarah Stafford's front door. She is waiting inside with the door open and a condescending smile plastered on her thin lips.

"Good Morning Delaney." Her dead voice tries to sound welcoming.

"Good Morning Dr. Stafford," my forced monotone sounds, "it's nice to see you." I say fakely, she knows it's insincere, but hopefully she thinks so because of their medical efforts with me. If I were like them nothing would be nice.

"Yes, sit down." She says motioning to the seat in front of her. I do as told as much as it pains me. "So, how are you feeling this morning?" on this side of the fence feeling is a dead word and when it is said it is weighted with a different meaning, it's a façade.

"I'm a little tired. It's not that easy to get to sleep around here. Some of the other patients can get a little noisy at night." I say trying to stick to physical states that can be associated with feeling.

"I can imagine." She says with a smirk. She could never imagine. She couldn't even imagine if she still had the ability to use something other then so called logic. "You have made a very big improvement since your first month at Abernathy House." She says plainly, "do you remember what you were like when you first arrived?" her expression appears judging, but when does it not.

"Yes, I remember. It's quite embarrassing looking back." I say with a forged chuckle. Actually looking back I want to cry. When I first came here I still had the Wilds in me. Now my fierce animal quality has been sucked out just like the love that was sucked out of Dr. Stafford.

"Do you see how much better your life has gotten? We have removed you from wing C and me and the rest of your doctor are having a meeting today to determine if placement in wing A will be good for you." Her short brown hair bobs as she says this with falsified enthusiasm. Wing A consists of the patients who they believe they have cured, the ones kept to study their improvements.

"That would be very nice." I mimic her enthused gestures while holding down my own. Gaining the advantage of underestimation is my only chance at freedom. I will get one chance and I am about to make it count.


End file.
